Quote de jour
"Readers may be divided into four classes:
 1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
 2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
 3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
 4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also. "

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My room with a view series is unfolding weekly but the colors are changing daily. It's like being at the hair salon and someone is painting on highlights of gold and red strand by strand. All summer the stone fence, street, cars and neighbors are obscured by greenery, but now the first bare spots are evident waiting for a gradual 'big reveal'.



 What type of reader are you? I think it depends on what you're reading. I'm traveling and I need to make this shorter than usual. The magazines covers are odd juxtaposition of images and fear-based words. The fabulous retro cover of Janet Jackson on Harper's Bazaar trumped all.




Every article I've read about Joyce Carol Oates always mentions her as a prolific writer of prodigious talent and I have to agree. She teaches at Princeton, writes in long hand for hours every day, and even found time to get re-married a few weeks ago to Princeton psychology professor Charles Gross. Whew. Her latest is a book of short stories titled Dear Husband and I can't wait to dig in.

With a step-daughter in college, I'm eager to read the highly touted debut novel Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan about the lives of four dorm mates from Smith, a liberal arts college several years after graduation. http://www.jcourtneysullivan.com